Europe - migrants - Cologne attacks - The comments section on this Guardian article...

[Denzil_DC]

71. Dude, you're arguing with someone

who's based an entire post, on a US forum that's not exactly short of outrage on this and related issues right now, on the rantings of those who have nothing better to do than hang out in the Guardian's comment sections as if they're representative of anything meaningful other than who's got spare time, Internet access and an axe to grind. The vast majority of people in the UK - let alone a meaningful section of "the left", because I think that ship sailed long ago for the Guardian's online presence - don't even read the Guardian, let alone read or post on newspaper comment sections. It's kind of meta all over, because here we are.

We have issues in the UK around race and immigration. I'd like to think as Brits we generally keep a level head about it all and try to muddle through.

I'd also like to think we don't make a habit of wandering into forums frequented by those largely from another country that has a different and no less chequered history, not least with the Middle East and the politics surrounding it, and throwing fuel on a fire that's burning brightly enough as it is, but evidently not all of us are of the same mind.

I'm not saying stop. As a fellow Brit, living at the opposite end of the country to you, I agree with you on almost all you've said (and you may have seen enough of my postings on the UK group to understand a little of where I'm coming from). Just that with very few exceptions, nobody who gets involved in this particular rash of threads seems to be looking for much more than confirmation of their existing views.